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Rhetorical Analysis Of What To The Slave Is The Fourth Of July

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An abolitionist, a former slave, and Republican Statesman Frederick Douglass had given a moving speech “What to the Slave is The Fourth Of July” to an audience of white New York Abolitionists in the year 1852. In addition, Douglass’s purpose of the speech is to emphasize the meaning of the Fourth of July to slaves and how the white men have a sense of freedom while the slave has to deal with the reality of what the day means to them. In the speech, Douglass had created a harsh tone to discuss the importance of anti-slavery.

Douglass begins his speech by explaining the idea of what a slave may think of the Fourth of July because he had been a slave and by expressing the way he feels about the holiday that represents freedom for the people in the United States. He calls upon the audience by asking them a question using an interrogative sentence “[...] allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here today?” (P.1) Nevertheless, Douglass’s interaction with the audience allows them to reflect upon themselves and ask why he is speaking because that is what he thinks himself. In conclusion, this questioning tone of actions from Douglass conveys the audience to a state of mind of what else he considers the matter of …show more content…

He uses parallelism to move straight to the point by exposing that he himself had gone through the pain of seeing white men celebrate the event in which he himself had only seen sorrows “The sunlight that brought light and healing to you has brought stripes and death for me” (P.3). He fuc disengages himself from the audience and presents his k past by saying “ [...]brought stripes and death to me.” This use of parallelism of Douglass has brought a haunting tone that reassures the audience that he does not agree with audience on where they stand with Fourth of

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He questions his audience of the significance of Independence Day to slaves, and he answers it in an extremely contrasting way: “your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; … your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery,” that the celebration is “a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages.” Douglass dismisses the national pride, characterizing it as a mere expression of people’s ignorance. The antithesis, with “greatness” being “vanity,” “sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless,” and “shouts of liberty and equality” being “hollow mockery,” provokes shock and anger from the audience, who have just been part of it and are now degraded as “savages.” However, Douglass was not trying to be inflammatory but provocative, witnessing the pathetic enthusiasm in the anniversary, that people feel exuberant about themselves while ignoring the saddening

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Douglass uses his Narrative to share his position is by telling his audience how unfairly Douglass is treated and how white men or slaveholders take control of the life of a slave because in the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass on page 1 paragraph 1 it says, The nearest estimate I can give makes me now between twenty-seven and twenty-eight years of age. I come to this, from hearing my master say, some time during 1835, I was about seventeen years old.” What this piece of evidence is demonstrates is that Frederick Douglass did not even now his own birth and that he had to guess on what his master said and that his master knows more what Frederick knows about his life. Another way that Douglass’s uses his Narrative to share his position is by telling their audience how unfairly Frederick and many other slaves were treated because because in the Document “‘ Pro Slavery Arguments South’’ on paragraph 6 it says,”Southern slaveholders pro-slavery arguments defended the interest of the plantation owners against attempts by abolitionists, lower classes, and non-whites to institute a more equal social structure.”

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